Boulder's Jeremy Freed always imagined he'd have another shot to win the Bolder Boulder citizens race after his 2011 victory. This morning, he made his move just before the five-mile mark to win the Memorial Day 10-kilometer race in 30 minutes, 57.6 seconds for the second time.

Freed, who said he's been hampered by injuries since his first win, has been training only since April and expected to finish “near the middle of the pack.” Even today, his right knee was tight before the race, he said.

“Honestly, for me today, I haven't done really much training, so it was a tough race for sure, but I'm really, really happy to be here,” said the 25-year-old Freed, still crouched on the ground catching his breath.

“When I won in 2011, you kind of almost assume that you'll be in this position again, but there's so many injures, so many just tough things that happen with distance running in general, so it was a huge blessing to be back here.”

Freed, who runs for the Newton Elite team, is a Colorado native. He grew up in Evergreen and went on to run for Colorado State University.

Three-time Olympic marathoner and Boulder Track Club executive director Lee Troop led for most of the race, until Freed picked up his mile pace to 4:52 just before the five-mile mark. Brandon Birdsong, 25, followed suit, but couldn't keep pace, running the last mile in 5:11 to finish second in 31:15.27.

At that point, the 40-year-old Troop said he didn't have the energy for a last-minute push. He finished third in 31:26.22.

“Jeremy flicked the switch at 8K and that was it for me,” Troop said. “I was done. I was just trying to hang on.”

Birdsong, who lives outside of Colorado Springs in Manitou Springs, said he planned to run the Bolder Boulder as a workout, but then got caught up in the race. This was his first-ever Bolder Boulder.

“I planned on just tempoing the first four miles and then hammering out the last two,” said Birdsong, who runs for the Boulder Running Company/adidas team. “Once I got up there, I realized that I probably wasn't doing a workout anymore.”

Troop, who ran the Boston Marathon in April, said he's been struggling emotionally to run again after the bombings. His hotel, which was near the finish line, was locked down, and Troop didn't sleep at all that night. The “little voice” in the back of his head took over, he said, and he couldn't stop thinking about his three children. For the week after the race, Troop said he was glued to his television watching the news.

Even now, he's not sleeping well, he said. A few days ago, he decided to pull out of the race entirely, but changed his mind.

For Troop, this race was supposed to be his mental comeback -- the race that flicked his running switch back on, he said.

“I got into the race and, I don't know, I just felt aggressive for some reason and I thought, ‘All right, I'm just going to go hard,'” Troop said, pausing to congratulate or chat with runners he's coached as they crossed the finish line.

“As soon as the gun went, something just clicked. I had no intentions to run that aggressive at all. Each turn, each corner, each hill -- I just kept getting aggressive. Every time someone got beside me I just pushed the pace again.

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